A peristaltic pump moves blood, filtrate and other liquids through tubing of an extracorpeal blood circuit. One or more peristaltic pumps may be arranged in a pump console which usually includes a pump controller and user interface. The blood circuit is releasably mounted onto the pump console and the tubing of the circuit is loaded in the peristaltic pumps. The rotating pumps drive blood and other liquids through the tubing of the blood circuit.
An automatic loading mechanism for loading the tubing onto the pumps is desirable to ease the task of inserting the tubing into the pump and to avoid pinching the fingers of the operator loading the tubing. An exemplary automatic tubing loading mechanism, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,861,242, has a rotating tab extending from the pump head to catch and displace a tube into the racetrack of a roller pump. Conventional automatic tube loading mechanisms tend to be mechanically complex, to have tabs and other rotating protrusions that can catch and pinch fingers of operators, have a relatively long pump setup time and to be difficult to operate. Accordingly, there is a long felt need for an automatic pump loading mechanism that is easy to use, mechanically simple and is not prone to pinching fingers while the tubing is being loaded into the pump.